Mr. Kim, the 56th student president of University of Seoul (UOS), embezzled student union fees. On March 30, 2021, Mr. Kim transferred 2.36 million KRW of the total student union fees for the first semester to a bank account he specified as “Company A Event Deposit.” However, this money was actually sent to his personal bank account. On April 30, he again remitted 4.115 million KRW from the bank account of the student council to his personal account. On the same day, after the embezzlement, he closed the account of the student council.
 

At the time of the 2019 UOS Festival, the 55th Student Council owed about 9.58 million KRW. This debt occurred in the course of pushing ahead with the new event. Then, on September 9, 2021, the acting student council authority “Light” was launched. They found that 6.47 million KRW out of 9.58 million KRW in debt was repaid in the student council account, which was terminated while preparing the budget for the project plan. Therefore, Light suspected embezzlement because they knew that the student council had failed to pay back the principal and had only paid interest and penalties. This raised suspicions of embezzlement by former student president Kim.

Light contacted Company A, which hosted the 2019 festival and demanded the debt repayment details. However, Company A replied that there was no debt repayment. The investigation showed that Mr. Kim had arbitrarily forged and submitted the estimates of Company A. In response, Mr. Kim said that he had repaid Company B and not Company A, but it turned out that this was also not true. It was also found that he had asked Company B for false statements to cover up his crime.

On September 30, 2021, the acting student council authority Light filed a criminal complaint. On November 16, 2021, UOS suspended Mr. Kim for four weeks. However, UOS students say that the punishment is merely a “slap on the wrist.”

The head of the special investigation committee who handled the case said that he thought that structural problems had a greater impact than on an individual’s lack of conscience. He said that student autonomy, which relies solely on individual morality, fundamentally reflects the poor reality of the system and needs improvement in many structural aspects. He also said that in order to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, various checks and mechanisms should be established so that the student president cannot embezzle public funds. He added that it is important to diversify the audit body in terms of its structural components because it facilitates an environment in which the student president can easily commit corruption.

The embezzlement of student union fees worsened the situation of decreasing interest among students in their own autonomy, and ultimately led to a loss of trust. It is time for prompt measures to be implemented in order to prevent such incidents from occurring again. 

Hwang Ha-hyun 
madang8899@uos.ac.kr